Cyclone Season Page 17

  Holly thought she’d melt. And as Wade’s caresses became more ardent, her fingers began their own journey of exploration. It was a short one; when she realised that he was dressed still in clothing soaked by the storm and his rescue mission, some semblance of sanity returned.

  ‘You’re soaking wet!’ she cried, whipping the towel from her tousled hair.

  ‘So what? I’m not made of sugar,’ he replied, reaching over to pull her close to him again.

  ‘Perhaps, but you could certainly catch your death of cold,’ she replied, trying to force him away by thrusting her palms against the clammy wetness of his chest. It was like shoving against a tree. Wade ignored her efforts and pulled her close against him once more.

  ‘1 think we’re more than capable of keeping each other warm,’ he suggested, his breath warm against her ear. It was tempting, oh, so tempting, to believe him, to give herself. And she would have, had not the wind chosen to take a hand in the discussion. With a clatter that would have shattered any romantic mood, a wayward piece of roofing iron smashed against the bedroom window’s cyclone screen and hung there for a moment, vibrating with frustration, before it rattled its way down the wall to land with a crash on the ground below.

  Both Holly and Wade flinched in instinctive alarm, but it was she who recovered first. Slipping from his loosened grasp, she flung herself off the bed and leapt to where her bathrobe hung. She wriggled into it, and was tying the belt before he could reach her. And her eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and apprehension.

  ‘The cyclone’s getting worse,’ she said, her voice a whisper against the sudden onslaught of wind that threatened to rip the entire house apart. Wade looked at her silently, his head cocked as he assessed the situation.

  ‘Wind’s shifting,’ he muttered. ‘The damned thing’s shifted direction again. But don’t worry, little Hollyhock, this house is as safe as any in town, and a lot safer than most. Now trot out and turn the radio up so we’ll know what’s going on. I’m off to grab a shower while I can and get into something dry.’

  She was glad to follow his directions, pleased to be able to leave the enforced intimacy of the bedroom before her fears and her crying physical needs betrayed her even further. And as soon as he was safely in the shower, she quickly flung on a pair of jeans and a shirt. If the cyclone worsened, she didn’t intend being huddled with Wade in the bathroom shelter wearing only her robe. That, she decided, would be tempting fate too far.

  There was still no new cyclone warning when he emerged, wet hair tousled, but dressed in khaki trousers and shirt. Almost, she thought, as if he’d had the same thoughts about how they might spend the next few hours.

  ‘Well,’ he said with a grin that showed no hint of the mixed emotions Holly felt, ‘T guess we’re a bit better dressed for it, anyway. Any word yet on what’s happening?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, and then prattled on as the words flew to her lips. ‘How can you possibly be so calm?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not much else for it. And truly. Holly, you’d do better to relax a bit. Apart from Tracy there haven’t been all that many direct hits in all of Australia’s history, so I’d give you odds we’ll come out of this without too much real damage.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘But I just can’t take it quite that calmly.’

  Again he shrugged, this time with a wry gleam in his eye. ‘You seemed calm enough when I found you outside trying to rescue a patio lounger that was long past saving.’

  ‘I wasn’t a bit calm. I was scared stiff,’ she said. ‘But I was worried it might be blown away and cause damage. That would have been my fault, you see, because I left it out there, and I should have known better.’

  ‘So you should, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. There’ll be worse trash than that flying around the town about now. What worries me is how casually you put yourself at risk. I thought I’d have heart failure when I got back to find you outside in that!’

  ‘Well, I didn’t particularly enjoy the experience myself,’ Holly retorted. ‘But there didn’t seem to be much else I could do, under the circumstances,’

  Wade nodded sagely. ‘It was a very brave, selfless and totally stupid act,’ he said. ‘I’m not really surprised; Jessica might have done the same. 1 don’t know what it is about your family that produced such strong-willed women.’

  ‘I’m sure Jessica would have had more sense than to leave the thing out there in the first place,’ Holly replied, ignoring the rest of his comment in her surprise at the unexpected compliment. ‘I should have had, too, but I didn’t. And besides,’ she added, stifling a yawn, ‘I was. ..’

  ‘You were half asleep, I suspect,’ he said gently. ‘I expect you were up all night worrying. Certainly looks like it, from the preparations you’ve made. Makes me wonder if you were preparing for a simple little cyclone or the next great flood. We could live for a month on what you’ve stockpiled in the bathroom.’

  ‘I was only doing what your damned emergency pamphlets said I should,’ she snapped, growing angry at the criticism.

  ‘Oh, don’t get stroppy,’ he grinned. ‘Nobody’s criticising you, and least of all me.’ Unexpectedly, he stepped forward to take her shoulders in his great hands, pulling her close so that he could stare into her eyes at close range.

  ‘Are you always like this when you’re over-tired?’ he asked with a surprising gentleness that didn’t quite serve to calm her.

  ‘All you ever do is pick on me,’ Holly replied, being quite irrational and knowing she was, but unable to halt her runaway tongue. ‘You’ve criticised me from the very moment you first met me; you’ve never believed me, never trusted me ...’

  Tears flooded away the rest of what she was going to say, and perhaps just as well, since she didn’t know what she was saying anyway. Fatigue and nervous tension had finally taken their toll. Wade, in any event, didn’t answer. He just stood, holding her gently and looking down at her with what — from anyone else — she might have taken for genuine compassion.

  Then the radio interrupted, and both their attentions were immediately claimed by the pronouncement that the cyclone had once again turned for the coast, and this time was expected to strike land even further north than before. Also, Wade was now inexplicably weakening.

  ‘Right! That’ll be the end of it, then,’ Wade growled, releasing Holly as if it were a great effort to do so. ‘So for you, young lady, it’s bedtime and no arguments. I’ll be here if anything new happens, although I’m sure the worst of it’s done. I hope so, because I’d hale for us to miss our flight in the morning.’

  ‘In the morning?’ Holly couldn’t at first credit his words; her sense of timing was as distorted as the rest of her.

  ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ he grinned. ‘It is, in case you hadn’t noticed in your weakened condition, now Sunday morning, if only just. And tomorrow morning we catch our flight, cyclone or no cyclone, provided the planes are going, of course.’

  And taking her again by the shoulders, he steered her gently but firmly towards her bedroom, walking her along as if she were a child past its bedtime.

  ‘Right — into the sack with you,’ he said. ‘Can’t have you flying to Perth with great bags under your eyes. Jessica would have my hide for not taking proper care of our little treasure.’

  ‘But, what about you?’ she replied. And then finally managed to voice the question that had been brewing in her mind ever since she’d recovered to find him there. ‘How did you get here? There couldn’t have been any aircraft flying in that!’

  ‘What kind of a silly question is that?’ he replied, and managed to look genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Not at all silly,’ said Holly, but less certainly, now, less sure of herself. Could she really have been mistaken? Could it possibly be that he hadn’t been in Perth with Ramona?

  ‘Well, it’s silly to me. I don’t think you’re tracking properly,’ he said. ‘Now please, just go to bed. I’ve spent eighteen hours getting here and I’m in
no mood to play silly games, so just go to sleep like a good little girl and we’ll talk about it in the morning. This is no time to be a nuisance and you’re too tired anyway.’

  Nuisance! The word flew around inside her brain like some evil spirit during the forty-five seconds it took her to realise he was right. She was too tired to be arguing something she was so unsure of. And the word was first into her head when she emerged from exhausted sleep more than twelve hours later.

  Nuisance! Yes, she decided, that was exactly the problem. To Wade she was only a nuisance, and could never be anything else. So why bother to discuss last night’s question? It just didn’t matter, and never would.

  She walked quietly through to the kitchen and put the coffee on, then sat staring out into the lifting dawn, marvelling at the nearly cloudless sky, the light, nearly normal breeze.

  ‘It’s almost as if it never happened,’ she mused, although there was sufficient evidence in the form of wind-strewn rubbish and surface water to reveal that she hadn’t totally imagined the cyclone.

  ‘Oh, it happened all right.’ The voice from behind her caused Holly to turn with a start, but Wade showed no interest in her surprise. ‘Luckily, good old Wade blew himself out almost immediately after crossing the coast the second time,’ he said. ‘Is this coffee for me? Good planning, dear Holly, because this morning I need it more than you can imagine.’

  He joined her at the table, explaining in general terms how he’d been out most of the afternoon before and all night — while she slept, Holly realised, although he didn’t mention that — helping to clean up the wind damage in the town.

  ‘I must congratulate you on how you handled yourself,’ he said. ‘There were a lot of people in town who didn’t do nearly so well.’ Ignoring the foolhardy rescue of the patio lounger … ‘And there was a lot of quite unnecessary damage.’

  Holly was barely listening, her mind still trying to accept the abrupt disappearance of the cyclone. ‘But, you mean it’s over? Just like that?’ she asked, turning to stare out the window.

  ‘Just like that. Except for the mopping up,’ he said. ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? The main centre of the cyclone missed by a fair bit, and where it crossed the coast there wasn’t much for it to hurt anyway. I expect the roads will be cut for a few days, and there’ll be trees knocked down, but that’s nothing very serious.’

  ‘It is hard to believe,’ she admitted. ‘I expected, well, I’m not really sure. The pamphlets don’t deal as much with the aftermath, but while it was on it just seemed as if it would go on forever.’

  ‘And you were a lot more frightened than you let on,’ Wade replied. ‘Not that I blame you for that; so was I. But now I can assure you that Wade is out of your life forever. Gone, blown out and finished.’

  Too true, Holly thought. Or at least, almost true. Certainly she must accept that as soon as Jessica was recovered. Wade would indeed be out of her life.

  That thought was sufficient to put a damper on her mood, and it was a damper that remained during their trip to the airport and throughout the long flight south. Coupled with that was the question of facing Jessica, who by this time might be expecting a blast for having deceived them so badly, but even so, Jessica couldn’t help but be alert to Holly’s reaction to Wade. What might she say? And worse, what could Holly reply without making matters worse?

  She also didn’t know how her aunt would react to the fact that they’d just left the house! Wade, under Holly’s questioning, had blithely dismissed the issue as being of no importance, and had then refused to discuss it further.

  And throughout the flight, he’d seemed as moody and withdrawn as Holly, staring out the window through most of the journey and speaking only when absolutely necessary.

  When they arrived in Perth, he ignored the hired car outlet and instead dragged Holly towards the taxi rank, where he brusquely commandeered the first available cab and directed her inside.

  But it was not to the hospital that he directed the driver; it was to the self-same flat they’d shared on Holly’s arrival from Britain.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Holly demanded, confused and becoming angry herself in reflection of Wade’s mood. How could he possibly contemplate visiting Jessica with them both so angry and disturbed?

  ‘I’m taking you somewhere we can talk privately,’ was the blunt reply. ‘Now just sit quietly and do as you’re told.’

  ‘I will not!’ Holly cried, loudly enough to draw the cab driver’s attention. The man turned to glare at Wade accusingly, only to grin when Wade turned on his charm and winked at him.

  ‘She’s suffering a bit from pre-wedding jitters is all, mate,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘She’ll be all right once we get some place private, if you know what I mean.’

  The driver grinned, and Holly was stunned into silence at the cunningness of the ploy. How could he dare say such a thing? Or was this something worse, some beginning of a plot to make Jessica feel better, to help speed her recovery?

  By the time she’d worked out that much, it was too late to argue. The driver pulled up at the flat, and Wade had both Holly and their luggage into the lift before she could argue.

  She followed him meekly into the flat, flinching at the mixture of angry, hurtful and delightfully sensuous memories.

  Wade said, ‘Sit!’ and she did so, perched on the edge of her chair like some frightened bird, mesmerised by the eye of her personal cobra, but unable to flee.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Do you want a drink first, or shall we get on with this?’

  ‘On with what?’ she cried, but he wasn’t listening.

  ‘A drink, first, I think. Lord knows I need one. Holly, you are the most frustrating, annoying, totally unpredictable woman I have ever met.’ And he continued to mutter to himself as he poured their drinks and brought hers over.

  ‘Now,’ he said in a voice like silk over steel. ‘What was all this nonsense the other night about how did I get there? And don’t trouble to try and gloss it over, because 1 know it must have been damned important to you for it to come up under such stressful circumstances and I intend to have some very straight answers.’

  She tried to be evasive despite the warning, but his insistent probing quickly revealed at least the reason for her query, Ramona’s phone call. Holly managed, quite successfully, she thought, to evade mentioning her own immediate interpretation of the thing.

  Wade sipped at his drink, his pale eyes holding her to silence until he replied. ‘And of course you thought I’d done the dirty on you, and gone off to Perth, leaving you to cope with the cyclone on your own, along with everything else. Ah, Holly, I’d really have expected you to think better of me than that.’

  ‘I...’ She paused. What sense to deny it? She couldn’t lie to him without him knowing it immediately.

  ‘Well just so you know,’ he said, ‘I got there by driving for eighteen hours in something less than ideal driving conditions, breaking Lord knows how many laws in the process. But yes, I did see Ramona, whom I imagine deliberately set out to get you going. I was in the process of closing out the last of my business associations with her father, and she flew up with him that same day — and back again, I might add.’

  Again, he paused to observe Holly, speculation ripe in his eyes. ‘And if I didn’t know better, dear Holly, I’d think you were not only suspicious of me, but jealous into the bargain. Were you?’ The final words were soft, intent.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Holly managed to reply, lying quite brazenly.

  ‘Just as well. I cannot abide jealous women,’ Wade said, almost smugly. ‘And you realise, I expect, that it was Ramona’s jealousy of you that caused her to deliberately lead you into thinking what you did? Not to mention, of course, that ridiculous gambit of using an English accent to order all that glassware for the party.’

  ‘I ... I don’t think I want to talk about this,’ Holly managed to say. ‘And it doesn’t matter anyway; it’s all in the past.’

  ‘Too right
it is, and just for the record, so is Ramona, who has had no significant part in my life since well before you came into it,’ Wade said. ‘Now is there anything else you’d like straightened out? If so, out with it, because I’m damned if I’m going to have shadows hanging over my head when I propose to you.’

  ‘When you what?’ Holly couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

  ‘Just what I said. We are not going to see Jessica until we can tell her we’re getting married as soon as she’s well enough to join us in church. Much as it hurts me to admit her matchmaking worked, had worked, in fact, before you even got to Australia. Damn it, Holly, I think I must have fallen in love with you just from your pictures and your letters.’

  Holly sat there, the glass unnoticed in her fingers as she stared at Wade. She wanted to answer him, to declare her own feelings, but the words wouldn’t come.

  And yet the answer was there, in her eyes and in her heart, and when Wade reached out to pull her into his arms, he could read it well enough. And then she could say it, oblivious to the spilled drink she’d dropped.

  ‘I didn’t have a picture to fall in love with,’ she whispered. ‘And I don’t think you could have ...’ The rest was lost when his lips drowned out her words, magically banishing every fear she’d ever had, every doubt.

  ‘I just can’t understand how you took so long to see it,’ he said after an endless moment. ‘I realise that I didn’t come right out and tell you that I loved you; but 1 thought you must be able to see it. If we hadn’t been interrupted at Honeymoon Cove you’d have known, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Only if you’d told me,’ Holly replied. ‘I was so sure you couldn’t love me, after that incident in the airport and all the misinterpretations that caused.’

  ‘Only in your own mind,’ he whispered. ‘I’d forgotten it long ago, or would have if you hadn’t kept bringing it up. But I’m telling you now. Holly. I love you. And I’ll keep right on telling you, because we’ve had enough misinterpretations to last us a lifetime.’